Objections to MAiD for Mental Disorder at the AMAD Committee, Al Jazeera Documentary + Press Review

As you will see in our communication this week, meetings of the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (AMAD) continue until November 28, 2023. We would like to thank everyone who submitted a brief to the committee before the deadline of November 16, 2023.

Living with Dignity also submitted a brief, which we look forward to sharing with you as soon as it is officially posted on the Federal committee’s website.

Below is an article announcing that Canadian human rights lawyer Julius Grey is ready to launch a legal action to object to the expansion of MAiD access for mental disorders, an interview with the French magazine Humanité questioning euthanasia as social progress; Al Jazeera focuses on MAiD in Canada; a reminder of the National Grief and Bereavement Day; the new bulletin from the Quebec Association of Palliative Care, and other brief news.

In this week of Thanksgiving for our American friends, we want to express our gratitude for your steadfast support!

Jasmin Lemieux-Lefebvre
Coordinator
Living with Dignity Citizen Network

Special Joint Committee (AMAD) Meeting on November 21, 2023

After a complete absence of witnesses who shared the perspective that that we had not reached the level of readiness necessary for the safe and proper application of MAiD (in cases where mental disorder is the sole medical condition cited), three of them were invited to the meeting on Tuesday, November 21.

During Panel 1, at 18:45:24

• Trudo Lemmens, Professor, holder of the Scholl Chair in Health Law and Policy, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, in a personal capacity.

During Panel 3, at 20:50:00

• Dr. Jitender Sareen, Medical Doctor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Manitoba;

• Dr. Pierre Gagnon, Director of the Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Laval University.

Drs. Sareen and Gagnon spoke on their own behalf and on behalf of eight psychiatry Chairs in Canada (out of 16) that still oppose the planned expansion on March 17 next year (recall their Association’s position in 2022 via Canadian Press or their statement on November 23, 2022). We salute their call for an indefinite pause before considering expanding MAiD to mental disorders as the sole invoked illness.

To watch this meeting: 
https://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/Harmony/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2?fk=12434831.

To hear Dr. Gagnon’s response to Senator Yonah Martin’s question (at 21:26:52): “Is there consensus among Quebec psychiatrists to proceed with medical assistance in dying for mental disorders?”.

See the video on our X account below (in French).

The documentary "Do You Want To Die Today?"

The documentary “Do You Want To Die Today?” We invite you to watch the 25-minute documentary “Do You Want To Die Today?” produced by Al-Jazeera, in English, launched on November 17, 2023.

Here is the description:

In this documentary, Fault Lines examines how Canada became the most permissive place in the world for those seeking medical assistance in dying, or MAiD, the country’s term for euthanasia, and whether it’s putting Canada’s vulnerable citizens at risk.

In September 2021, Rosina Kamis, a 41-year-old woman from Malaysia, was euthanised through Canada’s newly expanded medical assistance in dying regime. Rosina told doctors that she was seeking euthanasia to put an end to the suffering caused by her fibromyalgia, which she had developed in her 20s. Yet in conversations with her friends and in dozens of videos, emails, and phone calls, she made it clear that she was actually seeking death as an escape from the poverty and isolation she faced in her day-to-day life.

In just a few months, the country will expand eligibility for euthanasia once again – this time for people whose sole underlying condition is mental illness, like Mitchell Tremblay, a 41-year-old man from Guelph, Ontario who plans to apply as soon as he becomes eligible

Other News

– National Grief and Bereavement Day took place on November 21, and for the occasion, the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association has prepared these tools.

– In a surprising announcement, Julius Grey, a prominent Canadian human rights lawyer, told a group of anti-euthanasia protesters that he was ready to file a lawsuit against the law allowing medical assistance in dying (MAiD) for people suffering from mental health issues. Excerpt from the article covering the protest organized on November 18, 2023 in Montreal by Dr. Paul Saba, to be read in the Catholic Register.

– For what reasons do you believe euthanasia is not social progress? You assert that the left is mistaken in its fight to defend active assistance in dying and euthanasia. Can you explain? The responses of Isabelle Marin, a palliative care physician, and Sara Piazza, a clinical psychologist, in the magazine Humanité (in French).

– Horizon 2040: Projection of the impacts of autonomy support in Quebec by the Jacques Parizeau Chair (HEC Montreal) and Mylène Moisan’s reaction in her column for Le Soleil, “You don’t want to be old in 17 years.”

– The new (beautiful) Newsletter from the Quebec Association of Palliative Care for its Fall 2023 edition (in French).

– On behalf of the entire Living with Dignity team, we would like to acknowledge the passing of Clarisse Brissette by offering our sincere condolences to all those who had the privilege of crossing her path, including the large family of her adoptive mother, Louise Brissette.

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2023
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